Author: Jill Kramer

There has been such a huge response to the blogs written by me and my cardiologist, Dr. Lukas Dekker, Catharina Hospital, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

I now want to write a short piece about his own forum www.hartvolgers.org (hartvolgers means in Dutch:  Heart Followers).

This site/forum was the initiative of my cardiologist and now patients can ask questions to the doctors themselves and exchange stories with other patients.

As everyone knows the heart is the most mystical and complex organ/muscle in the body and there are many many topics ranging from a slow heart beat, a fast heart beat, fibrillation, problems with the valves, congenital defects etc.It is a vast subject and doctors have to study for many years to reach the level of knowledge that Lukas has achieved.

I promised him that I would add this into my own WordPress feed, so that any of you reading this would be able to register and join the forum.

You need to go to:

www.hartvolgers.org

Register yourself with your name and email. Once this is done, you can log in and  ask a question which will be answered by one of the expert cardiologists on the forum. Expect to get an answer directly from Lukas himself when it concerns electrophysiology; (arrthymmia)  it’s his field. He can literally repair a heart with rhythm problems.

I hope all of you who have given such a response to our blogs, and who have problems and or questions concerning your own heart will now feel free to join the forum.

Again we are very grateful for the enormous response. We will be doing a part 4 when I go back to see Lukas on the 14th August.

Thank you everyone,

Jill & Lukas

Image Copyright Hartvolgers.org

A short story by Jill Kramer 2018 ©

Part One

Avebury, England 2027

It was one of those perfect summer days, bright blues skies, fluffy white clouds like cotton wool balls and hardly any wind. Lily parked her car in the car park and walked over to the entrance of the famous stone circle in Avebury. This was the first trip she had planned on her own since her husband passed away. After months of feeling sad and being at home, the idea of making a trip down memory lane, in the UK, had suddenly grabbed her imagination and here she was. Having done the driving herself, been through the Channel Tunnel and the drive down to Avebury, which she had done many times in the past.

It was more of a sentimental journey as opposed to a sensible one. She did not want to be sensible; she just wanted to feel what it was like to come back to her roots. Lily had been born and raised in the UK but left in her early twenties and moved to France to work. There she had met her husband and had a lovely happy life with him and their children, but now she was on her own, it seemed right to come back to England, albeit for a holiday.

A short story for summer Jill Kramer 2018 ©

As she left the motorway having driven down from Amsterdam in her new car, onto the island, suddenly everywhere seemed familiar. Having had a few busy days since she arrived at Schiphol Airport she was now on the way to a house that had been her home for many years.

The island looked the same, even though it was 7 years since she had left. The same road, only two lanes had never been widened despite the accidents that regularly used to occur there. At the next traffic lights she turned off right onto the sub-road, which lead to the village. Passing the windmill, which looks exactly as it did all those years ago. It looked tinier than she remembered and then on through the tiny hamlet. Certainly there were new houses, the old supermarket had been converted into a house and some of the small cottages joined to one another to make larger homes. As she approached the harbour gates and saw the view across the water, which had been put there in 1953 after the worst flooding ever in that region, she turned off and took the small road that lead to her house along the shores of the lake. Well they called it a lake but it was really the sea, especially now as the sluices to the open sea were regularly open and for the first time in more than 70-odd years, there were tides once more.

Today, the 3rd July 2018 and a very hot summer’s day, I have worked my way through more than 400 reactions (just from the last couple of days) from you all to my blog. In total there have literally been thousands! The personal blog about my heart, which I wrote with my cardiologist, Dr. Lukas Dekker, seems to have gone viral! On his behalf too, I am extremely pleased and would take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you for your feedback and comments. Most appreciated. I have tried to reply to each and every one, sorry if any have been missed. The subject matter has definitely touched everyone’s heart!

A lot of you have asked, if there is more? Yes, parts two and three which are on the feed as well. So hopefully you can go and read them too.

Glad to say that all is well, my heart still in a perfect sinus rhythm and when I go back for my check up on 14th August I will see if we are going to write another blog. I remember that Lukas once remarked to me that once operations have taken place, he does not hear much more from patients, because in the main they are cured. That was the reason why we decided to do these blogs together and also produce them in Dutch, as we are both based in The Netherlands and onto the platform www.hartvolgers.org. which he started a few years back.

Hartvolgers (Heart Followers) is a platform where people can ask questions and advice from cardiologist about their hearts. It was his idea and it had been and still is a huge success. Often people feel intimated about asking their doctors or overwhelmed by the subject matter and it is wonderful that you can subscribe as ask what you want and get a reply even if you have another cardiologist. A lot of them are all on site, so you will get a reply for sure.

In the meantime, I am writing this little message to say a huge thank you for all your positive remarks and feedbacks and also for subscribing to my feed. Some of you are also receiving notifications when new blogs appear and this morning I have had a new idea so there will be something appearing in the next few days. A simple remark from a friend has also given me an idea for a new book. That is the way is happens with writing.

Again many many thanks for all your reactions.

I thought it might just be a nice idea to finish off the series of my blogs about my heart, with a third and final one, which is more about hearts in general and foremost, the big question:

How do you mend a broken heart?

Obviously I am not talking here about a physical heart, more metaphorically speaking about what do you do if your heart is broken and why? What are the reasons? And more important what can you do about it?

The first thing that springs to mind about having a broken heart is all about love. A relationship that is broken for whatever reason. I am sure that many of you reading this will remember your first love affair. Whatever age you were (or even are), that seems to be the most painful for everyone and one, which is engraved into your memory.

Personally I remember that I was about 15 or 16 at the time. I used to go out regularly with school friends to the local youth club, or sometimes to a disco in the next biggest town, Guildford. It was nearly Christmas and I remember meeting a boy called Brian, who kept asking me to dance. At the end of the evening, a few kisses and the exchange of our home telephone numbers. This was long before the era of smart phones and the social media app’s we have today. He rang me up a few days later, asked me out for a next date, and so the relationship went on. He was older than me I remember, studying at the London College of Hairdressing and Fashion in Oxford Street. Often I would go up by train to London to meet him there, it was all so exciting and fun. We all felt so grown up! He would sometimes come and visit me at my house and vice versa. He was highly talented and I thought he would go on to become a famous name in this industry, like many of the students who studied with him have done and their names are worldwide brands. The relationship went on for about one and half years and then all of a sudden he broke it off. I was devastated; never saw that coming and then he re-established his relationship with a previous girlfriend. It was right before my final college exams and I remember my mother being quite furious with him about the timing. He wrote in my diary (yes, we had them in those days), that he would always love me and never forget me. Yes sure!!

I often bumped into them and once my ‘broken heart’ had repaired, I got into a new relationship as well and then he was jealous. As if he had the right to be?
In the end when actually my anger suddenly bubbled up out of nowhere about the way he had treated me, was the moment when my heart was truly mended. So in other words my conclusion about this was that when another emotion took the lead role that my heart recovered and healed. Sadness had been replaced by irritation.

The last thing I heard about him, a number of years later was, when I went to see him get married to girlfriend number one and was absolutely flabbergasted when I heard that he was going to be a butcher in a local village shop. After all that training and being really good too. What a waste it seemed, from making people beautiful with extravagant hairstyles and fashion, to go on and spend your working life, cutting up animal corpses!

How many of you reading this, are now thinking about the very similar situation? The loss of a first love is the worst, my mother always used to say. Of course, looking back and several relationships further on, it would have probably never worked anyway long term, even though I am willing to say that there are some people who meet the love or their live in a first relationship, marry and have a wonderful life together and are as much in love as in the beginning. Well done if you are one of those!

There is no pill or band-aid plaster or any cure actually, to put on your wounds. They literally just need time to heal. It may sound like an old cliché and it is, but you will recognize even if you think you won’t. It is that moment when you suddenly realize you have not been thinking about it for an hour, a few hours, the whole morning of afternoon and eventually a day. Then a week and a month. You can pat yourself on the back; you are healing all the time. The ‘pain’ has suddenly gone, just as quickly as it came. You feel better, more composed and generally life is possible once again and suddenly you are smiling and laughing again. There is light at the end of what seemed to be a dark tunnel.

It may then be hard to actually remember how awful you felt. You actually don’t want to remember. It can remain a memory deep inside and often a piece of music on the radio or someone suddenly says something; back comes the memory and that is perfectly OK, but that intense feeling of deep pain in your heart has passed. It is mending or it is mended. Memories are things we all have and it is good to have them. Good to know what things we did or achieved in our life, good things, bad things, things we might have done differently in retrospect, but it is all part of our own personal growth.

There are of course other aspects of having a broken heart and the next biggest one is loss. Loss of a child, a partner, a parent, a friend, a colleague, a neighbour, a pet; the list is long. Loss and perhaps death walk hand in hand and you feel as if your sadness and pain will never leave you again. Believe me it will eventually, but we all have to actually go through a process of loss. Loss can be something small or something big. Something, which may remain with us for the rest of our lives. Then it will become a memory. Because life is actually going on at its own steady pace and even if you feel you have completely dropped off the bandwagon for a while, that too is perfectly OK. You need time.

Again with loss, just like love, time is the healer, even though you will be confronted for a long time with special moments and memories. But they are good aren’t they? It would be awful to think that when you lose someone you have forgotten all about them all of a sudden.

Even though I personally think that time is a bit of an illusion and something that we humans have created ourselves, time is a healer in many ways and we should be grateful for that. So that seems to be the answer about how do you mend a broken heart? Be strong, be patient and get yourself involved in your own projects. Do something completely different, do something that makes you feel good, something you like to do. Enjoy. During the process it is perfectly OK to have happy moments too because it all contributes. Be authentic, be you, this is all about healing you personally. It is worth taking time. It is important. Just remind yourself that you are worth it. Everyone deserves happiness don’t they?

Finally just want to share the words of a lovely song written by Barry & Robin Gibb © (Warner Chappell Music)

I can think of younger days
When living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow
But I was never told about the sorrow
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart
And let me live again
I can still feel the breeze
That rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow
No one said a word about the sorrow
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart
And let me live again

image from Google Images

22nd May 2018

My computer warned me that that the traffic was bad to Eindhoven! Understatement, it was a nightmare! Stop, start all the way and I am going to be late. Have in fact to make a phone call to say, nearly here, expect to arrive in about 10 minutes. Then a huge sigh of relief and calm as we drive into the car park. My daughter is with me.

We ‘checked in’ at the Reception in the Heart Lounge and after the preliminary checks go through into another part of this new complex at Catharina Hospital, which has an atmosphere, which I can only describe as, homely. Putting in an IV drip is causing problems, but no doubt someone will manage it. I settle myself down into an extremely comfortable chair having been told that I am scheduled at around noon. I actually manage to read one single sentence of the new book I have brought with me (a Dutch book called Stromboli by Saskia Noort) and then a nurse comes to tell me it is time to change and get ready, the operation before mine is finished.

Yet another visit to the toilet even though I have not drunk anything since midnight the day before, just put it down to some sign of nerves, although I am feeling incredibly calm and not at all nervous.

Once in bed in my charming operation gown, the patient who was before me arrives back in the room. Wesley, a really friendly young man is in charge of the sedation during the procedure and he manages to finally get the IV drip in, so ready to go. On the way to theatre, one of the people wheeling the bed asks me if I am from England and then we launch into a chat about Ireland as he is going on holiday tomorrow along the Wild Atlantic Coast. It is incredibly beautiful there, where huge Atlantic waves crash against the coastline and have created one of the most spectacular wonders of the world – The Giant’s Causeway. I tell him what is it and definitely not to miss!

Once in the theatre which is number 5 by the way, then we suddenly start to chatter on about the Royal Wedding the previous Saturday which literally everyone has seen. England in its full glory, all that pomp and circumstance. All that normal stiffness has literally been swept away by a very new type of service. Lukas intervenes and says ‘shall we get on with things!’ Yes of course.

Then after the normal pre-op questions I then have to get out of my bed and onto the actual operating table and that in a gown, which is about the size of a tea towel. I make a remark but come on its nothing they all have not seen hundreds of times before. The table itself is quite narrow and hard as stone.

My ‘tea towel’ is removed and a mass of people are putting on ECG leads and preparing for the actual ablation itself. I have a totally unflattering hat on my head and now an oxygen mask across my nose and face. I glance up at the clock at the time is coming up to exactly 11.11 am. Wesley says it is time to start putting me to sleep and then everything goes blank.

In actual fact, as I have already told Lukas, I go right out of my physical body and leave it behind on the table for them to get on with their work. I have made this journey out many times before and it always starts in the same way:

There is blinding white light, I am going through it and eventually come into a space which is so totally different than anything from the world as we know it as humans. My soul is making this journey; my physical body is left behind on an operating table in Eindhoven.

The first thing about this place is it is totally serene. The sounds are different, the colours are different and as I begin to move into this world of in between, there is a small bridge crossing a river. To the left is a field filled with the most incredible flowers, all colours and a heady perfume scent. There standing in the garden is my spiritual father. He is pleased to see me and holds out his arms to give me an embrace. It feels incredibly familiar, which it is and perfect.

I make my way further, seeing things along the way I have seen before.

My next recollection is that I am travelling to somewhere completely new. I can move extremely fast and without any restriction whatsoever and space and time itself fade away. This new place is something I will write about another time, I still have to absorb the impressions and things that happened and try and put it into words. As I write this blog several days later, I know I need time. This place is where I am going after this life here on this planet. It is something totally new.

Suddenly at about 1 pm I feel someone moving my physical body. I have a moment of hesitation, do I actually want to come back, yes or now, there is split second of time, but I do because I know I have promised to. It is not right to pass over at this moment that will happen later on a date I have known actually since my birth on this planet, all those years ago now in England.

Now Lukas will take over this blog again and tell you exactly what he did. The reason I asked him to do this and be so specific is that a lot of people (more than 1400) have reacted to my first blog and all want to know ‘what happened next?’

“After Jill fell asleep I punctured the femoral vein twice in order to place 2 catheters in her heart via de inferior caval vein: one catheter in the coronary sinus for pacing the heart and one in the left atrium. The latter catheter enters the left atrium via a puncture through the atrial septum. This is a routine procedure in our centre. This is all the equipment we need, as we try to minimize the number of punctures and catheters for patient safety. The procedure went perfectly according to plan, normal anatomy and optimal electrical isolation by inflating a cryo-balloon (freezing) in the pulmonary veins. We believe this is the most effective and safe procedure for atrial fibrillation. It took about 80 minutes from start until removing the catheters”.

Suddenly, I can feel incredible pressure on my groin, hard fingers pressing deep into my flesh. I know this is happening stop any bleeding. A pressure bandage is wrapped around my groin and having moved myself back into my bed, I am now on the way back to the room where I started. Have to lie flat now for several hours. I sleep the rest of the afternoon until Lukas appears and tells me that everything has gone really well. He and his team accomplished what they were going to do. I actually ask him if my heart has stopped? He reassures me that it did not and they have only given me cardio version to re-set my heart after the procedure, because after all it is mended now, to ensure there is a good rhythm. Totally logical of course!

In the meantime several other people have come and gone during the afternoon, the majority of which I have missed entirely because I was in such a deep sleep.

The nurse comes to ask if I want something to eat, yes, suddenly feel hungry and attempt to eat something lying down, which is in my opinion totally impossible.
When I am allowed to sit up, I wait for quite a long time before even attempting to stand up. Everything feels stiff and I have real cramp in my leg from lying in one position for so long. Once the feeling of dizziness has passed, I can walk to the toilet.

Unfortunately, there is a sudden huge loss of blood and I have to rush back to tell her. Apparently this can happen, when the catheter has been passed through one of the major veins, but the urgency is that I have to lie flat as soon as possible and they have to stop the bleeding. This happens and I have to lie flat for about an hour or so.

Around 9pm I am moved together with two male patients to the so-called Night Stay. Restless night, filled with dreams, a lot of which I cannot remember.

After breakfast and a shower, which makes me feel human again, I can go home and start on the procedure of healing. The major job is done, thanks to Lukas and his team and it is up to me now to take things easy and slowly build up my activity once more.

The most amazing thing is that for the first time in a long while my heart is beating in a perfect sinus rhythm. A rhythm in my body but also beating in time with the universe itself. All is well, all is perfect.

Back in August for a control and in the meantime enjoy the most amazing summer weather. I am actually typing this blog in the shade in my garden, which is filled with roses and lilacs. The scent is almost intoxicating. It’s a very hot day here (30oC) but a gentle breeze coming off the sea is making my wind spinner turn and the wind chime is playing its tune too. Life is so good.

I hope that any of you who are reading this blog, that if you have heart concerns, worry no more. The techniques, the equipment, and the way cardiologists work with their teams of experts are changing so much now. Just like our world is changing each and every day. It is very important however, to have a good rapport with your cardiologist as that in my opinion contributes a lot to how you feel as a patient beforehand and how you go into the actual procedure itself. A feeling of complete trust, and complete surrender to their expertise. I certainly had that and I am incredibly grateful that it all went that way.

It was wonderful that there were so many other things that all came together on that day, now one week later. Each and every day I am getting better. Stiffness is subsiding and I feel incredibly well.

Jill Kramer (May 2018) © & Dr. L.R.C. Dekker, Catharina Hospital, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Logging in to my website this morning I have received over 1370 reactions to my posts. Amazing and I want to thank each and every one of you who has taken the time and the trouble to write me a message especially to say how much you, your friends and colleagues are enjoying my work and also sharing it amongst your own social groups. I really appreciate this, so a big thank you.

I thought that I might be able to reply to everyone individually but the numbers have gone up so fast it will take me ages, hence this general message to you all – thank you.

I am working on Part 2 of my blog about my heart. For those of you who have asked me how I am progressing – very well. Each and every day getting better and my heart is still beating strongly in a perfect sinus rhythm. I have had a little ‘time out’ from my writing to actually allow my heart to get used to this new situation. Remember for years now it has been desperately trying to work!

I am going to finish the trilogy about my heart with a more general blog which I hope everyone will respond to – how do you mend a broken heart. By this I don’t mean your physical heart but ….. watch this space will be released sometime next week.

We are soon approaching mid summer or mid winter depending on which part of our planet you live. Enjoy this season.

Thank you all once more, I am really honored by the comments and really appreciate them all.

Jill

Image from Google, artist unknown

COUNTING DOWN, 3..2..1

06.30 am 22nd May 2018

A second chance for my heart, the story starts ..

12^THMarch 2018

Finally months and months of waiting are over. Tomorrow is my appointment with my cardiologist, Dr. Lukas Dekker, at Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven. An early start, the traffic can be busy around Tilburg and I want to be there on time. I want to be at least half-an-hour early so that I can settle myself into a chair with a coffee and wait my turn. It is the last appointment of the morning session but I know him well and he is always either early or on time, so I want to be all relaxed and ready.

The discussion tomorrow is going to be about finally taking the decision whether or not he will do ablation in my heart. I have had arrthymia now since 2009 and under his care since 2012. Believe me a lot had happened in the past 6 years. I have had my medication changed many times, several echo’s done and three sessions of cardioversion, when they stop and re-start your heart, hoping that it will stay in rhythm. It is always a case with the cardioversion (as they say in the hospital: ‘guarantee to the door’) I have been quite lucky on that score. My heart seems to go back easily into its proper rhythm but eventually the electrical circuit in my heart goes haywire again and it is all over the place. One minute slow and often missing beats and then racing along, far too fast.

It is hard to put into words how this actually feels. First of all you are constantly thinking about your heart and its rhythm whether you want to or not. You feel the beats in your throat, because of the major arteries and veins running up to the brain. When you lie down in bed at night, you can hear it in your ears. Lying on the left hand side is sometimes impossible because you put extra pressure and weight on the heart itself and it feels weird.

Quite by chance one day, way back in 2012, I just happened to see something on Twitter about a live operation happening in Eindhoven. This was a new method to actually cure my problem.

When I first met Lukas I knew instantly that he was the right person to take on the care of my heart. I felt a calm feeling of complete trust and all through the years I think we are basically a good team together. I knew deep down inside that because of the previous history I have with my heart, that he would always try to choose non-invasive treatment until we reached the point where nothing else was working and that ablation was inevitable.

I remember that very first meeting in 2012 when I told him about the heart operation I had had in 1974 in London, England and that the world famous Christian Barnard and John Parker had repaired my mitral valve and yes, here I was, living proof that surgery done all those years ago was still working. I remember him saying how amazed he was; not only by the names, but that techniques done in the pioneering years of heart surgery were incredible. It was in December 1967 that Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant in South Africa and then he went on to teach other cardiologists around the world including those in London. All of whom are, or were, famous names. What a lot has changed since those early pioneering days.

All the time I have been under Lukas’s care it was good that we can communicate well with one another. Each and every change made in medication was discussed and the consequences too. It is so important I feel to have a good connection between doctor and patient. A mutual feeling, which is built up over the years. It was therefore so easy to say if I felt something was not working well at all, for instance when he put me on beta-blockers last year, I had a really tough six months, my heart was beating around 40 beats per minute (bpm) which was so slow that even getting up and walking around became a huge physical effort for me. I was so glad I could actually say so and he made the decision to stop them.

Taking a lot of medication every day is something I do automatically now. I am thankfully on Pradaxa (anticoagulants), which means that I don’t have to have my blood checked every few weeks to see if it is OK. The risk of blood clots forming in a heart, which does not beat properly, is high in the case of arrhythmia, and because of the danger of having a stroke. I seem to be able to tolerate this medication well.

Over the past few months I have been losing weight. That was a criteria. Not easy, but I have done my best I think. Cut back on a lot of things but at the same time I did not want to become ‘a shadow of my former self’ not at this age. I cannot change the basic framework and bone structure of my body, and I don’t want to become skinny and old, whether it is enough, tomorrow will tell. I have done my best that I know.

Personally I don’t like scales and getting on them, so I haven’t mainly because I cannot work mine (too complicated) and it can be so depressing when you think you have done your best only to find that you have lost one ounce. But my clothes are just so much looser; my very tight jeans are now billowing around my legs.

With this appointment in mind tomorrow, when I think we will have a discussion whether or not ablation is going to finally cure my atrial fibrillation, has had me thinking a lot over the past few months whilst waiting for this appointment.

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever about my own cardiologist. Lukas is the best and excellent at his job and I trust him implicitly, so what am I thinking about?

It is my own mind-set, which is at ‘sixes and sevens’: On the one hand, I know he will do a brilliant and professional job, but I also have to play my role in this operation too. I have to go into it with, as I just said, the right mind-set. To be honest I don’t have that today as I type the first words. Why not? I keep asking myself.

This morning I was awake early going through hundreds of different scenario’s about what am I going to say tomorrow. I know the first thing he will say when he calls me into his room is ‘how are you?’ and what is my answer then? I am feeling emotional already. It is easy to talk to him but the time is limited and I just want to be really sure, one hundred percent sure, that I am absolutely in the right frame of mind which is another way of saying mind-set. Is that my big question?

I know that I can do all sorts of meditations and other spiritual exercises to boost myself, so why not? Everything helps and maybe I will feel a bit calmer, but tomorrow my heart will be racing like an engine when I have my ECG done because I just know how much is at stake. I really want to be cured of this problem once and for all. To literally get my life back. Perhaps that is what I have to concentrate on. Not about all the details, potential risks and such like, just go into this whole procedure knowing the best man in the country will take care of me. That has to be enough. Just as long as I am in tune with him on an energetic level. What is wrong with that? Nothing of course.

I will explain. An energetic level: by this I mean that there is always an exchange of energy between all living things. Each and every person, animal, tree, herb, flower etc has its own energy field. In people we call this an auric field. So when two people are in one room, their aura can literally fill the room. Not everyone can literally see this, but many can feel it. I have seen auras since I was a child, so I can easily ‘see’ the movement of the energy. It is almost like an exchange If you like, that is so why it is so important I feel to be in tune energetically with someone when you are literally putting your heart in their hands.

To be perfectly honest I am not entirely sure what the matter is with me? Nerves or taking a big decision perhaps. Normally I am pretty cool about everything. In November last year during our phone conversation there would not have been one single second of hesitation. So why now? Isn’t my priority to get cured once and for all?

Of course it is and having just typed that I am saying ‘come on get a grip and get organized’. So with less than 24 hours to go to my appointment, going to spend the rest of the afternoon doing just that. Not going through endless possibilities, ideas, shall I say this or that, doing something completely different and going tomorrow with a fresh mind, fresh ideas and just see what happens? That is the best I feel.

 The actual appointment 13th March 2018

It is the most horrible day imaginable weather-wise. Totally uninspirational. Grey, thick clouds and pouring with rain and cold. Traffic will undoubtedly be busy. Always the same when it rains, more people go by car.

Now having said that Lukas is either always early or on time, his clinic was really busy and he was running late. After my ECG and chat with his assistant, sat down and waited until he eventually called my name. But I know in between he always finds me somewhere in the waiting room.

Strange how our conversations seem to pick up just as if I was there the day before. We are able to talk easily with one another, especially over the years, when the doctor/patient relationship has really become more of a friendship.

It was a good conversation, we talked about the procedure and when he suddenly asked: ‘do you want me to do it?’ I nearly fell off my chair. What a question! It is him or nothing, which is exactly what I said. So, yes decision made. We are going for it. A few formalities like filling in a form and having my blood tested and now it is a waiting game until the email or phone call comes giving me the date.

The lovely thing was on the way out of the hospital I was just about to stop and visit the restrooms and we bumped into one another again in the corridor. He just said: ‘don’t worry, ready to go and I will take really good care of you’. I mean no words needed anymore. I am ready and waiting to take this second chance. A second chance. To get my life back, feel fit and well.

Now ‘patience’ is the key word, playing the waiting game …

Lukas takes over this blog: (26^thMarch 2018)

Doctors want to prevent and cure diseases. And, at least equally important, doctors want to prevent doing harm. Primum non nocere (Latin for “above all, do not harm”) is a classic principle in medicine.

Therefore, curing people in a safe and effective way makes the day for each doctor and nurse. We constantly aim at making our way of working safer and better. For me, it is a joy to work with the best equipment and, more importantly, with experienced nurses and technicians. This team, the collective of skilled individuals that know how teams should communicate, is the most important determinant of successful treatment. I, therefore, fully understand patients who are critical and demanding, as they will also appreciate a job well done.

Pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) clearly exemplifies how this works. The Catharina Heart Center is the largest EP-center in the Netherlands, performing about 1500 ablations per year.  We perform about 500 routine first PVI-procedures, using a cryo-balloon in the left atrium in patients with a fibrillation.

This procedure is a routine procedure that should be as safe as possible, with optimal outcome. The success rate after a first procedure is about 80-85%, and major complications are extremely rare. I truly believe in this technology.

So, Jill, you are not the worrying type, and we will not disappoint you.

28^thMarch 2018

He is right no doubt whatsoever in my mind and I am not worrying at all. I know that I will be in extremely safe hands with my doctor and his team. Just waiting, waiting for the date. It is Easter this coming weekend, so a couple of days will not be available for the planning. Originally I thought that the date would be 5^thApril 2018. This is actually a nice date for me numerologically: First of all this is an 11-year (just add up the numbers). When double figures occur we don’t split them down in a single digit because this is a so-called ‘master number’. Eleven crops up a lot in my life and then 5^thof the 4^thmonth makes a 9 (again another one of my numbers). It will be interesting to see if I am right and my original first thought too.

4^thApril 2018

Easter has been and gone and now into the month of April. Still no date! Why not?

I have moved so much in my own agenda around so that I was free and ready as instructed!  Quite by chance and probably a good thing in retrospect, found out that I will not be on the list until at least after the 23^rdApril. Lukas has holiday plans, which by the way is perfectly ok by me, I am pleased for him that he is having a well-deserved break from his breakneck schedule. But, all sorts of strange emotions come up inside, from irritation, impatience and several others, which I will not mention. I see myself stepping back in time to the wrong mind-set once more. I should probably say to him next time around don’t say anything about the time schedule. But I won’t. Just leave it and practice something, which is not really easy for anyone – patience. It is a virtue as they say and the majority of us, in these fast moving times, me included, just want to get on with things. Of course I would have preferred it all to be done by now, but obviously some sort of ‘intervention’ has taken place and so be it.

This morning woke up with a song going around in my head – from Rag ‘n bone Man. ‘I’m only human after all, don’t put the blame on me’! Too right, we are all that.

So relax and wind down again, nothing is going to happen until at least after 23^rdApril so I can now get on, in peace and quiet, with a lot of projects that I pushed to one side.

This morning read a post by an astrologer friend of mine, Kari Samuels, all about the month of April. She says, today is a 4/4 day – four represents stability, earth and practical matters. OK. When many 4’s are present it is time to square your corners and find freedom within restriction. Boundaries can be your best friend at the moment. Squares have 4 corners, today Mercury in retrograde squaring fiery Mars in Capricorn. Stabilize ambitions and ground before you put your plans into action. Sometimes (and this is the most relevant part for me) the slow way is the quickest way. Build deep roots and growth cannot be rushed.

The best is worth waiting for in the end.

16^thApril 2018

They say time flies, how true. Have been side-tracked by the death of my former boss and friend. Funeral was at the weekend and the entire day went just as he would have wanted it. Celebrating his life and not being sad. The nice part was re-meeting old colleagues after 30 years. Men I remember being in their prime are now into their 80’s. But it was a good day; weather was perfect and afterwards catching up on stories and memories. When someone says to me that I look exactly the same 30 years on, wow what a compliment. In the end the whole weekend turned out to be a ‘trip down memory lane’ and we all left with the idea if Hans had been watching us, he would have been so thrilled that his final journey had been that way.

Today is the start of a new week, so getting on with projects and keeping myself busy. Chatted to a friend in Chicago who I have not spoken to for a while this morning, 7 hour time difference so my breakfast time and in the small hours of the morning there. We suddenly realized that we had been talking for over an hour and half, and that it was now 4am Chicago time, so finished off the conversation. You always know that despite the time in between, such friendships just pick up from the moment from where you left off, just as if it was yesterday.

So I wonder if I am going to hear anything this week? To be perfectly honest I have just pushed the entire idea completely to one side now, we shall see.

Moving on but at the same time keeping connected.

25^thApril 2018

Where has all this negativity come from? I can see that because of all the things that are going on all around me that my personal level has dropped down considerably so much so that I sent off an email this morning. Lukas replied really fast and we are going to talk by phone tomorrow. It will be 7 weeks exactly since my appointment on the 1^stMay! I asked myself after a really weird dream, why this was happening? Normally it is very simple for me and there are countless ways to do this, keep my energy at a steady level, but I think the ‘unknown’ was to blame. Not knowing when and if a date is going to happen. I allowed myself to be literally ‘pulled down’ why I don’t know? Just too much going on and my concentration being distracted (interrupted) by this and that all the time. So after the chat tomorrow when there may be more clarity and the status quo restored, going to do some things which do not involve me typing words on my laptop, but something more grounded, like the garden, filling the pots with flowers, doing something creative and I have a nice idea in my mind, having visited the Spring Fair last Saturday in Kats. It is time for a real ‘time out’, cleanse out the frustration of waiting and do something completely different for a change. Celebrate the King’s Birthday on the 27^thwhere there will be a lot more going on that usual everywhere.

11^thMay 2018

Well you know how I keep saying that everything happens for a reason. Well it does. Today is the 11^thMay and I have finally received a notification about the date: 22 May 2018. My goodness it does not get better than this for number combinations: seriously.

2018 is an 11-year, (just add the numbers and because this creates a double digit number we do not change it from there), now I have the 22 to add to it and then by adding the two 11 and 22 we get 33. So a triangle combination of three master numbers. The triangle represents the three-sided shape in sacred geometry, the building blocks of the universe itself.

New Moon in Taurus, 15^thMay, which always opens a moment for a new energy. Another one of my numbers, which always comes up is a 9, and guess what I have to arrive at the hospital at 9am. So even though this has been a very long wait and has caused me frustration, in the end, as I know all too well, everything, literally everything happens for a good reason. The date of 22^ndMay just moves into Gemini, the sign of the twins, creating another mirror or double combination. The sign for Gemini is like a mirror, each sign reflected. Taurus is an earth sign, very grounding and good for two people with fire signs.

Gemini is also the third sign in the zodiac, originating from the constellation of stars under the same name. Gemini is represented by the sign of the twins, Castor and Pollux (stars), one mortal, one immortal. They were granted a share of immortality after the death of the mortal brother Castor. The element is Air, which fans the flames of the Fire. Ruled by planet Mercury.

The moon on the 22^ndMay is exactly at the high way mark between the new and full moon and exactly 50% visible, the half.

Also a friend told me that there is a reference to the 22^ndMay in one of my most favourite books: ‘The Book of Love’ by Kathleen McGowan. It is the story of Mathilda of Toscane and the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France. Mathilda was born on 22^ndMay, as well as Sara Tamar (the last daughter of Jesus and Mary) and Fatima from Portugal.

See what I mean when everything suddenly has so many reasons and why the wait was necessary?

So the countdown begins, 11^thMay to 22^ndMay, 11 days ………..

22^ndMay 2018 (06.00 am)

A very early start this morning as the morning traffic can be horrendous and there is nothing worse than arriving either at the last moment, or late.

Feeling very calm, just as if I am personally holding one of the last pieces of the puzzle. Lukas probably has one too.

New beginnings, a new moment and finally feeling fit and well again with a heart beating in a steady normal rythmn.

To be continued ….. in part 2

Photos: Private collection Jill Kramer ©

© Dr L R C Dekker, Catharina Hospital, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

So many of you have reacted to the first two chapters of the Blue House that I am going to try something new. You may have noticed that there is a plugin to a creative platform called UHMI and they have advised me that it might be a completely new idea to release the full book in sections of two chapters at a time. There are 40 in total, so there will be 20 sections. The first two chapters have been published for free. UHMI is a platform where you can either pay or donate for creative content. So if I release the book in this way, it will be possible to pay to read via the UHMI plugin (its a small blue triangle on my page. But what would be a fair price? The book is currently retailing at Euro 19,99.

After taking advice I have decided to release each section (two chapters at a time) for a payment of Euro 0,50. The whole idea behind UHMI is micro credit and many people. In this way, to read the entire book will only cost Euro 10.00.

So how can you pay UHMI. At the moment, you can pay by IDEAL. This is for Europe and linked to European banks. By the end of the week UHMI are hoping that all credit cards will be accepted through this same payment module. There are no transfer charges for you as the reader and by signing into UHMI via the plugin, you can upload money into your own personal wallet and pay as you read on. There is also no time limit. This book will become available all the time once I have split it into sections and uploaded. I am working on this right now.

I think that a lot of you who have been so incredibly positive about this book and the first two chapters may now feel that you can read on without all the rigmarole of purchasing the book, awaiting its arrival and high postal charges.

What do you think, who is keen to do this? I always like new ideas and if this is the way to get my book all across the globe then I am more than happy to oblige. Bear with me please, I need to now split and upload and I want to do this properly and not rush.

Watch this space, once the work is done, I will let you know. I hope that this will inspire many of you to read on about the adventures Grace and Matthew get up to in their life together.

Jill Kramer 7th May 2018